AU Web Anti-Phishing Banner AU wants you to look before you click!

Phishing scams looking to exploit your trust continue to grow in sophistication. This year alone, AU customers have received several messages purporting to be from AU offices or well-known companies with which we might regularly interact. They can look very real, have a sense of urgency, and may ask us to login using our credentials. Often the messages include web links that will download malware onto our computers to gain access to our personal information, simply by clicking on the links.

This new portal login page banner is intended to remind us that it is important to verify the address in our browser matches the site that we wish to visit. Phishing is a common tactic used by criminals, which tries to trick us into giving up our username and password to them. This is often done through emails where the link in the email appears to point to a legitimate website, but in fact will direct us to a malicious one. American University and other universities have been targeted in such attacks. This is also a common method for obtaining bank account or other sensitive information.

What Does This Mean?

Before we log into the AU portal or any other site which requires a login, verify that the address bar in our browser points to the correct site. In the case of the portal, it should be:

Be Suspicious

If you receive an email that has a "login link" in it, type the URL of the website into your browser manually. For example: If you get an unexpected email from your bank, Bank of America - don't click on the link, type www.bankofamerica.com into your browser.